Preparation Day

John and Liz Sjaastad are due tomorrow about midday with their kids, and today will be devoted to final efforts to get the house ready. The deck now has slats between the railings to make it impossible (?) for a child to crawl or run through. Small circles have been painted onto the deck door so that the kids will not think it is open and rush through it. Electrical outlets have been covered and the hardward is ready to be installed to keep small hands out of the cabinets.

Since John, Liz and Elliot will have my room, I have to get it and my bathroom cleaned. Since I did a thorough job of this a couple of weeks back when Chris and Linda were here, that shouldn't be too bad.

Tom's office has to be set up as a bedroom for the girls. He has already removed all the painting supplies and such stuff and put out the stuffed toys -- including his monkey collection. There are nineteen of them, the kind with long limbs and velcro on the paws so they can hang from doorknobs or whatever. Other stuffed animals are scattered about, and my room, of course, has its complement of dragons.

Meanwhile, back at the railway ...

Yesterday we had someone from Georgia (not Gainseville), a family from Huntsville, Alabama (a university prof whose brother has a railroad-themed cafe there) and a couple of families from Iowa. I mentioned that I have friends in Davenport, and then last night I got a call from one of them. Rick was checking in to say that he is recuperating from his father's heart surgery -- five bypasses. His dad apparently is doing quite well. Other than that, things seem to be going well in his world, which is always good to hear. Iowa is one of the places saturated by Wisconsin Dells TV ads, so he is reminded of me constantly, plus he reads the blog. So, hey Rick! It was great talking to you.

Part of yesterday was spent helping John Scharbach get a job application ready, tweaking his resume and looking over his writing samples. This particular job would be as a paralegal for a Chicago firm, perfect for someone who is planning to go to law school. It is similar to what I did for the Screnocks, but rather than family law it is mostly labor law.

John seems well-qualified for the position, but I am sure there will be plenty of applicants since the job is in Chicago.

He is heading back down there on Friday so that he can take his driving test next week. He has been driving everywhere he can with me or Tom so that he can get more hours on the road. Although he doesn't have the seamless stopping and so on down yet, I think he will do fine on the test. The smooth stuff will come with time.

And that's what's happening in our world.

(Plus waiting to hear more about Justin and Angie, of course.)